Derek Conway
Tory MP Derek Conway has been outed as employing his son as a parliamentary researcher whilst he was a full-time student and paying him £1,000-plus per month, with a total of around £13,000 salary - plus bonuses. And all from taxpayer’s funds, for work that wasn’t done. Certainly not work to that value, anyway.
There is no excuse for what he has done. It is utterly disgraceful and unacceptable. He should have to repay every penny that has been wrongly taken. Every. Single. Penny. From his own money.
Just giving him a suspension from the House of Commons is not enough of a punishment - and the wrong sort of punishment. By suspending from the House of Commons, the people who are suffering are his constituents. What should instead happen is that he should have to continue working, but receive no pay.
I don’t agree, however, that this “should be the last-chance saloon for the scandal of MPs expenses. It should mean that MPs finally come clean and reveal full details of who and what is being paid from the public purse.” Because that isn’t fair on the individuals who work for MPs for their salaries to be public knowledge. Instead, MPs should have to reveal whether they are employing any immediate or close family member and any payment they receive- and why. That is as it should be - but not for all personnel. Just those who are related to them.
Like ConservativeHome, I think that Cameron’s reaction hasn’t been decisive enough. But I don’t think that the removal of the whip from Conway is the way to go. Instead Cameron should have declared that the Conservatives will be imposing a significantly greater punishment on Conway than the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee. After all, if they ejected him, they’d only end up bringing him back in eventually and reincarnating the whole story then. Far better to get it over with right away, and try and cut out as much comparison with Labour’s sleaze issues as possible.
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The whole lot of these robbers should be removed and made to pay everything back that they should not have had. The tax man should be looking into all there affairs and putting our money back where it should be. There one law for them and one for us i think Derek Conway has forgot where he come from NEWCASTLE for gods sake. I wonder what his parents would make of it all.
[...] the private sector and try their luck. But what they shouldn’t do is follow the examples of Derek Conway and Giles [...]